Identity,war, and peace: public attitudes in the Ukraine-controlled Donbas

ABSTRACT

Contrary to Russia’s expectations, military intervention into Ukraine only strengthened the Ukrainian civic nation. As a number of polls demonstrate, since 2014 there is a growing trend that the vast majority of Ukrainians, also in the government-controlled areas of the Donbas, identify themselves, first and foremost, as Ukrainian citizens. Regional and local identity is not their primary choice anymore and there are clear indicators of a strong civic identity that favors a unitary Ukraine. The lack of progress for a solution of the conflict in the Donbas impacts upon Ukrainian public opinion which, in turn, puts pressure on the Ukrainian authorities: there is a wide acceptance of a diplomatic solution to the conflict and readiness for some compromises but the reintegration of the occupied territories should take place according to pre-war conditions, without any federalization of Ukraine. Also, without establishing a stable security regime in the Donbas there is little support for an implementation of the political part of the Minsk-2 agreement. However, closer to the frontline, the more Ukrainians are ready for compromises. The promise of peace by new President Volodymyr Zelenskyy puts a question on what compromises his team may accept and justify in the eyes of Ukrainians.     

Existential nationalism: Russia's war against Ukraine

‘If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine’ is the sentiment used by Ukrainian protesters mobilising against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Such a sentiment signifies the stakes of a war where Ukraine is a democratic nation-state fighting for its right to exist against a Russian invasion. Meanwhile, Russia is fighting for a version of Ukraine that is subservient to Russia's idea of what Ukraine should be as a nation-state: under a Russian hegemon geopolitically, where Ukraine's national idea and interpretation of history can be vetted and vetoed by the Russian state. While nationalism scholarship equips us to study Russia's war against Ukraine through the lens of Russian ethnic nationalism and Ukrainian civic nationalism, the ethnic/civic dichotomy falls short of unpacking the more pernicious logics that pervade Russia's intentions and actions towards Ukraine (demilitarisation and de-Nazification). Instead, this article explores the logics of Russia's war and Ukraine's resistance through the concept of existential nationalism where existential nationalism is Russia's motivation to pursue war, whatever the costs, and Ukraine's motivation to fight with everything it has.     

What can and cannot be willed: how politicians talk about national identity and immigrants

The ethnic‐civic framework remains widely used in nationalism research. However, in the context of European immigrant integration politics, where almost all ‘nation talk’ is occurring in civic and liberal registers, the framework has a hard time identifying how conceptions of national identity brought forth in political debate differ in their exclusionary potential. This leads some to the conclusion that national identity is losing explanatory power. Building on the insights of Oliver Zimmer, I argue that we may find a different picture if we treat cultural content and logic of boundary construction – two parameters conflated in the ethnic‐civic framework – as two distinct analytical levels. The framework I propose focuses on an individual and collective dimension of logic of boundary construction that together constitute the inclusionary/exclusionary core of national identity. The framework is tested on the political debate on immigrant integration in Denmark and Norway in selected years. Indeed, the framework enables us to move beyond the widespread idea that Danish politicians subscribe to an ethnic conception of the nation, while Norwegian political thought is somewhere in between an ethnic and civic conception. The true difference is that Danish politicians, unlike their Norwegian counterparts, do not acknowledge the collective self‐understanding as an object of political action.     

Ukraine’s national integration before and after 2014. Shifting ‘East–West’ polarization line and strengthening political community

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the question of Ukraine’s societal polarization along the East-West line and the state of cohesion and endurance of its political community. In both political and academic discourses, Ukraine is often characterized as a country split between Western and Eastern regional and societal parts belonging to some wider geopolitical and cultural entities. Moreover, the recent upheavals in the life of the country – Euromaidan Revolution, illegal annexation of Crimea and Russian-Ukrainian war in Donbas – have actualized the allegations about Ukraine as a feeble state structure on the brink of disintegration and collapse. The findings in this study challenge both of these claims and it is argued that Ukraine is not a deeply divided or failed state. In practice, the East-West political polarization line is not clearly defined, but to the extent that it does surface in the political and electoral contests, this line has been moving from west to east since the early 1990s. The shifting of the polarization line implies that political and cultural identities in Ukraine are not fixed and, at the same time, reflects a strengthening cohesion of Ukraine’s political and cultural space. These findings are confirmed by the improved and ever-increasing convergence of Ukrainian society following the Euromaidan and Russian military aggression.     

Popular perceptions of Europe and the Nation: the case of Italy

ABSTRACT. To date, European identity has not mobilised a feeling of belonging or solidarity that would be comparable to the ways in which national identities stir people's passions and make them ready ‘to die for’ their nations. However, much of the related political debate and scholarly analysis has paid little attention to citizens' understanding of European identity and the way this relates to national identity. This paper aims to contribute towards filling this gap. It explores qualitatively the relationship between national and European identity among Italian citizens with a view to answering the following research questions: How do Italian citizens define Europe? Who is a European? How does feeling European relate to feeling Italian? How do citizens perceive the European integration process? The article is based on 24 qualitative interviews with Italian citizens of varying age, gender, locality of residence and socio‐economic status, conducted in spring and summer 2003. The methodology adopted follows the discourse analytical tradition.     

State building and European integration in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the impact on statebuilding as an aspect of Ukraine’s integration with the EU. The Euromaidan had a profound, yet hardly recognized, effect on EU-Ukraine relations, particularly in terms of the EU’s subsequent support of domestic reforms in Ukraine. Following the Euromaidan, the EU supported Ukraine’s aspirations to enter “economic integration and political association” by concluding an Association Agreement – an agreement which exceeded the capacity of the Ukrainian state to implement it. To increase this capacity, the EU has supported reform of public administration and has provided far-reaching assistance on capacity building in the government. This article posits that since 2014 European integration has become tantamount with (re)building the state structures in Ukraine. Therefore, the significance of European integration for Ukraine goes beyond the implementation of the Association Agreement and extends to root-and-branch reform of Ukrainian state structures.     

Intellectuals and politics

ABSTRACT. By imagining their audiences, intellectuals invented and constructed the collective identities of nations and transnational communities like Europe or humankind. Four ideal types of intellectuals are outlined by describing them in their relation to politics: the intellectual as cosmopolitan ascetic; the intellectual as enlightened legislator; the intellectual as revolutionary; and the intellectual as the voice of a traumatic memory. These ideal types change over time in response to their focus of attention and their mode of communication. Because of changes in their media (from handwritten to printed books) and changes in their written language (from Latin to French and Italian, and further to vernacular languages), intellectuals were able to change views on past, present and future times. Today, they are involved in (civic) resistance but rarely in politics per se. By renewing the tension of the sacred and profane – the so‐called axial‐age revolution – contemporary intellectuals in Eastern Europe are decoupled from direct political power.     

Untangling liberal democracy from territoriality: from ethnic/civic to ethnic/territorial nationalism

The term ‘civic nationalism’ as it is used today in nationalism studies is misleading because it combines territorial collective identity with liberal‐democratic values. As such, for example, it does not provide much insight into the comparison of Azerbaijani and Georgian concepts of national identity. Azerbaijan, arguably an authoritarian country, has used unconditional citizenship by birth on territory (jus soli) and refused to naturalize Azeri co‐ethnics from Georgia. Georgia, seemingly a developed liberal democracy, hasn't practiced any jus soli, has bestowed citizenship on Georgian co‐ethnics abroad and refused it to its ethnic minorities. These two cases testify to the need to revise the term ‘civic nationalism’, inapplicable to many, especially non‐Western, empirical cases of national identity. By establishing distinct historical narratives based on premodernist sources, the article argues that the ethnic/territorial tension is premodern, which explains why civic nationalism has a premodern (territoriality) and a modern (liberal‐democratic values) component. Territorial collective identity, in its contrast to an ethnic one, has deep historical roots and needs to be separated from the overall umbrella of civic nationalism. Such an approach resolves many current theoretical objections to ethnic/civic dichotomy, a ubiquitous, but still insufficiently understood, heuristic tool.     

Imperial nationalism as the driver behind Russia's invasion of Ukraine

The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine are to be found in two areas. The first is the revival of Tsarist imperial nationalist and White Russian émigré nationalist denials of the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Russian imperial nationalists believe the eastern Slavs constitute a pan Russian nation of Great Russians, Little Russians and White Russian branches of one Russian nation. The second is the cult of the Great Patriotic War and Joseph Stalin and the revival of Soviet era discourse on Ukrainian Nazis (i.e., nationalists). A Ukrainian nationalist in the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin's Russia is any Ukrainian who seeks a future for his/her country outside the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Russian World and who upholds an ethnic Ukrainian (rather than a Little Russian) identity. The Russian World is the new core of the Eurasian Economic Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin's alternative to the EU's Eastern Partnership. In the contemporary domain, Ukrainian nationalists are Nazi's irrespective of their language preference or political beliefs and if they do not accept they are Little Russians. Putin's invasion goal of denazification is a genocidal goal to eradicate the ‘anti-Russia’ that has allegedly been nurtured by Ukrainian nationalists and the West.     

Nation-building from (below) the grassroots: Everyday nationalism in Ukraine's bomb shelters

Life has profoundly changed for Ukrainian citizens since the beginning of the Russia–Ukraine war. While millions have fled Ukraine as refugees and displaced persons, others have remained in their cities to take up arms, volunteer, and/or shield for safety. Despite the devastation at all levels of society caused by Russia's ongoing attacks, Ukrainians' expressions and practices of nationhood have endured and even evolved in light of their country's war-torn reality, as is especially evident in the country's bomb shelters. As hegemonic theorising in nationalism studies often centres on the territorial state and its institutions, this paper instead considers the experiences of ordinary individuals who hold important colloquial and vernacular knowledge. Specifically, the project examines the everyday lives of Ukrainians at—or below—the grassroots within bomb shelters in the heavily attacked cities of Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Kharkiv to reveal how Ukrainian nationalism has manifested and even been (re)produced amidst the conflict. In demonstrating that nationalism has served as both a sentiment and expression of self, the findings emphasise its significance in the current conflict as a motivating and unifying force in Ukrainians' everyday lives.     

Is the classic diaspora transnational and hybrid? The case of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress

Scholars studying migration processes through the transnational prism have expanded the concept of ‘diaspora’ with a new meaning as a transnational, hybrid identity and condition, which has displaced the classical interpretation constructed around ethnicity and territory. By analyzing the activities of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which represents the organised Ukrainian community in Canada, an old‐type diaspora, this paper argues that transnationality and hybridity have always been the inner attributes of diaspora identity and experience and stresses the importance of an essential characteristic of diaspora: the conscious effort to maintain a distinctive collective identity. Only if a community succeeds in maintaining its collective identity throughout multigenerational change can it qualify as a diaspora. These two dimensions – the self‐consciousness of diaspora as a distinctive group and the survival of its distinctive identity through multigenerational change – set diasporas apart from transnational communities.     

社会心理学视域中的“社会认同”

社会认同理论是二十世纪八十年代以后逐渐兴起的社会心理学理论。伴随着全球化浪潮与社会认同、自我认同危机的逐渐显现,社会认同理论逐渐蔓延到社会学、政治学、民族学、人类学等社会科学研究之中,成为当代社会、文化、族群心理研究的重要理论之一。为了使我们更好地了解、运用社会认同理论,本文从社会心理学的角度就社会认同的概念、内涵及形成机制、支撑体系进行了梳理。     

‘Mountain women’: silent contributors to the global agenda for sustainable mountain development

In this article, we examine the transnational and international discourses and initiatives focused on and/or carried out by the so-called ‘mountain women.’ Tracking the growing reference to ‘mountain women’, we analyze the way in which the construction and the claim of a gendered identity has developed within the general debate on the international recognition of the global importance of mountain environments that emerged about 20 years ago. Drawing on documents, a survey and interviews, our main objective is exploring how such a reference could lead to the making of an imagined community of ‘mountain women’ offering opportunities for political action. This article concludes that, though women are identified in international discourses as essential contributors to sustainable mountain development, the social identity ‘mountain women’ has not yet evolved into a collective identity around which political solidarities and strategies coalesce to ultimately ground collective action. Indeed, women's organizations have other themes on their agendas and are active at other scales apart from the global one. Indeed, few are willing to identify themselves as ‘mountain women.’ For the time being, ‘mountain women’ remain silent partners in the global agenda for sustainable mountain development.     

Nation versus class in Ukraine

This article evaluates the long‐standing but rarely‐tested proposition that nationalism and nationhood mask the extent of class divisions in a society. Specifically, it examines three possible routes by which state‐nationhood might subjectively mitigate the importance of class. Nationhood may shape people's perception of the magnitude of economic inequalities, their perception of the magnitude of class conflict or their assessment of their own class position. An analysis of a mass public opinion survey from Ukraine in 2011 demonstrates that contrary to theoretical arguments advanced by a wide variety of scholars, national identity and national sentiments have very little or no impact on the perceived salience of class divisions in Ukraine. Contradictory forces within the national idea itself are identified to explain this outcome.     

Civic Education and Political Knowledge in Australia

As part of the renewed emphasis on national identity and citizenship, interest in civic education in Australia has increased. Although both Labor and Liberal national governments have been committed to introducing civic education, there is little research to show that the politically knowledgeable citizen is the more sophisticated and competent citizen. This paper uses survey data collected in 1996 to examine the extent of political knowledge in Australia and to analyse its consequences for political literacy, competence, and participation. The results show that the median citizen could answer two out of seven factual questions correctly, with women, the young and those with less education being more likely to provide incorrect answers. The relationship between knowledge and attitudes and behaviour shows that factual knowledge increases political literacy and, to a lesser extent, competence. However, knowledge has little effect on political participation, a major goal for civic education among politicians. Overall, the increased political knowledge that civic education creates is more effective in generating positive views of democratic institutions, and less effective in shaping political behaviour. The democratic citizen is expected to be well informed about political affairs to know what the issues are, what their history is, what the relevant facts are, what alternatives are proposed, what the party stands for, what the likely consequences are. (Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee 1966, 308)     

Fear and Foreign Bodies: The Bible and "Post-Racial" American Identity

Abstract

The Bible has played a prominent role in US political discourse, shaping ideas of race, ethnicity and identity. Its influence on the political landscape today is most evident within conservative politics—among evangelical Christians and the Tea Party Movement. At least in perception, its influence has been divisive. What role do biblical scholars and academic theologians have to play in contemporary social and political discourse, particularly with respect to race? This article approaches the question first by way of the concept of the political as espoused by Carl Schmitt and the category "race," both as applied to antiquity and to the modern period; second, through a reading of Genesis 20; and third, through attention to contemporary discussions of race among contextual and liberation theologians, focusing on the problem of essentialism in the constitution of identity. The article concludes by drawing together these elements to offer thoughts on a future course of American identity in the context of post-race desires and fears.     

Language identity,linguistic diversity and political cleavages: evidence from Ukraine

ABSTRACT. This article revisits the notion of linguistic diversity and its function as a political cleavage. It argues that people's linguistic and cultural attitudes are influenced not only by their communicative practice but also by their identification with particular language(s) – even though they may not always communicate in that language. In Ukraine, from which my empirical data is drawn, language identity is embodied in the concept of native language that was imposed by the Soviet institutionalisation of ethnicity and came to mean ethnic belonging as much as linguistic practice. My analysis of survey data demonstrates that native language is a powerful predictor of people's attitudes and policy preferences with regard to both language use and other socially divisive issues, such as foreign policy and historical memory. This finding should also be applicable to other societies with a large‐scale discrepancy between language practice and identity.     

BLUEBEARD'S FORBIDDEN ROOM: GENDER IMAGES IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S VISUAL AND LITERARY ART

Regionalization tendencies have often been regarded, in academic and political debates, as a serious challenge for Canadian federalism and the national unity of Canada. This article argues that regionalism—and increased regionalization processes in the context of neoliberal globalization tendencies—is not a contradictory force that threatens federalism and national unity, but that it is and has historically been a decisive feature of Canadian civic nationalism from the beginning of the nation-building project. As a consequence, and for better or worse, processes of devolution under the current politico-economic regime will stabilize Canadian national unity rather than undermine it: regionalization can strengthen civic nationalism in Canada by adding a cultural dimension as a vehicle that negotiates between individual citizens, identity groups, and state institutions. Regionalisms—such as Québécois nationalism—are malleable structures of belonging and provide institutional frameworks (e.g., informal constitutions) and forums of dialogue that enrich the political culture of federalism. We conclude that increased regionalization can help to strengthen Canadian (and other forms of) civic nationalism by preventing them from slipping into monistic unitarism.     

The birth of a united Europe: on why the EU has generated a ‘non‐emotional’ identity

ABSTRACT. In several respects, the European Union (EU) represents both a novel system of quasi‐supranational governance and a novel form of political community or polity. But it is also a relatively fragile construction: it remains a community still in the making with an incipient sense of identity, within which powerful forces are at work. This article has three main aims. Firstly, to analyse the reasons and key ideas that prompted a selected elite to construct a set of institutions and treaties destined to unite European nations in such a way that the mere idea of a ‘civil war’ among them would become impossible. Secondly, to examine the specific top‐down processes that led to the emergence of a united Europe and the subsequent emergence of the EU, thus emphasising the constant distance between the elites and the masses in the development of the European project. Finally, to explain why the EU has generated what I call a ‘non‐emotional’ identity, radically different from the emotionally charged and still prevailing national identities present in its member states.     

The lenses of nationhood: an optical model of identity

ABSTRACT. This paper tries to make the case for a model of political identity based on an optical metaphor, which is especially applicable to nations. Human vision can be separated into sentient object, lenses and inbuilt mental ideas. This corresponds well to identity processes in which ‘light’ from a bounded territorial referent is refracted through various lenses (ideological, material, psychological) to focus in certain ways on particular symbolic resources like genealogy, history, culture or political institutions. Distinguishing between referent, lenses and resources helps us more precisely situate many hitherto disparate problems of national identity. These include the ‘ethnic‐civic’ dilemma, the mystery of national identity before nationalism, and the relationship between local and national, and individual and collective, identities. The model also clarifies the place of universalist ideology, which currently fits poorly within the leading culturalist and materialist theories of nationalism.